


and it feels like heaven (when I kiss the devil)

by orphan_account



Category: DCU (Comics), Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Comfort, F/F, Hurt, and everything is FUN, basically its really gay but they’re both fucked up people, because this is DC
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 05:02:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7701811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“It’s okay.” Harley lowers her voice to a whisper, a wink accompanying her words as she giggles. “I hear the voices too”</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It seems that, when the world is under threat, when God’s are falling from the sky, the two women are more alike than it seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. she never sees the sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> This is all based on the movies portrayal of characters! 
> 
> (and this is ultimately the product of me wanting both more a) female interaction and b) female relationships in Suicide Squad.
> 
> So, enjoy :) More chaps to come depending on this fics received feedback! 
> 
> Based on “Kiss the Devil” by Bel Heir

 

The first time they meet, it’s by chance. 

By Wallers' permission (order more like it) she visits the jail.

It’s on the basis to “familiarise herself with the unit” so eloquently put by Waller. Yet June frowns, and thinks;  _ familiarise? We’re being sent to our death. I want no part in this.  _ Yet as she clutches the umbrella in her hand, rain beating down above her, the gates opening with a groan, June still steps forward. Swallowing her nerves down as Enchantress whispers in the back of her mind.

Screams is what hits her first, blood curdling moans and screams and the woman inside her shivers at the sound. In pleasure and delight at how unsettled June is between concrete and iron bars. June closes her eyes, whispering under her breath as a guard raises his eyebrow at her.

 “Quiet.  _ Now” _

_ Humour me. Kill them. _

 “Miss? I’ve been ordered to escort you around”

June looks up quickly, glasses falling down her nose as she hurriedly pushes them up, stuttering as Enchantress rattles the shackles of her mind. She answers the female guard, and doesn’t miss the bullet proof armour and helmet she wears. Draping her body like burden. June wonders why she’s going in with only her pant suit and heels.

 “O-oh, yes. Of course. Go ahead.”

The first room? A giant metal cage. And June whispers in awe at the sheer number of guards, the blearing light trained on the woman housed like an animal inside it. “Jesus Christ”

Harley. Quinn.

June hears her laughter before she sees the cage. She’s twisting, curled around a type of sheet, suspended in the air, smile wide as she giggles into the space between them. June stops short, fear creeping the edges of her skin as Enchantress whispers, caressing her ear.

_ Child, let me out. Seduce. Kill. Imagine what we could be! If only you just gave in. Pathetic. You  _ **_heathen._ **

They echo her mind, tearing at her sanity. And the bag June holds falls to the ground, her hands flying to the sides of her head as she screams, her back hitting the room's wall. The guard quickly grabs for their gun, concern lacing her voice.

 “Miss?”

 “Get out! Get out, get out, get out!”

Harley’s now interested hum filters the air, and June looks up, her hands still clutching her hair, mouth agape at the voices as Harley spins down. The other woman grabs the bars of her cell, smiling with a perfect grin as she reaches her hand out the cell, pointing at June and beckoning her with a “come hither” motion. Guards around them ready themselves as June lowers her hands, swallowing as she confusedly looks to Harley.

 “What? What do you want with me?” June feels a stray curl from her pony tail fall in front of her face, and Harley catches onto even that slight change in the atmosphere. Biting her lip as she looks to June.

And Harley laughs, high pitched glee as she presses her face closer to the bars. Face and gaze looking to June as if something other worldly, awe touching her words as her smile drops to wonder.

 “Are you an angel?”

June swallows again, answering as she walks ever so slowly towards the other woman. “No, not really.”

It’s like June is trapped, the woman in the cage making her feel vulnerable, yet safe in her words. In her high pitched voice. In the way her blue piercing eyes soothe the ache that is constant in her mind.

And June treats her like a child, calming her voice to not waver. “Are you?”

Harley giggles, biting her lip again as she looks June up and down. Her fingers and grip twisting around the bars. “Noo silly. Were you talking to someone before?”

June shakes her head, folding her arms as she looks to Harley ever so peculiarly. “I...no. I wasn’t”

She grips at her elbows to stop her body from shaking, to quell Enchantresses grip. And Harley lowers her body, sliding down the bars to then kneel as she pushes her body up against them. Moving in a way so enticing June follows her movements. 

 “It’s okay.” Harley lowers her voice to a whisper, a wink accompanying her words as she giggles. “I hear the voices too”

Yet June doesn’t have time to react, doesn’t have time to process Enchantresses roar of fury and defiance as Harley grins and grabs the lapels of her blazer. Bringing her body in to slam against the metal bars, smashing her scarlet lips against June’s as she widens her eyes and attempts to push off her claw like grip.

As June attempts not to taste the sweetness of Harley’s lips. As she tries to ignore the tongue slipping into her mouth. Then, just as she shouts “Get off of me!” thick electricity fills the air. The smell of burning flesh as Harley is knocked back into her cell, the bars frying her grip as her body lands with a thud.

June is pushed back too, her body sliding across the concrete as a guard hurries up to her, voice laced in worry. “Are you alright?”

June groans, pushes up on her palms and gasps out. “I-I’m fine”

_ You’re weak. Let me out! _

Harley’s laughs build up and echo, her shoulders shaking with the glee as she flips over onto her back. Laughing in a high pitched sing-song voice, sighing as if love struck, her teasing tone following June out of the jail.

The rays of the sun not even warming the archeologists bones.

 “I kissed a giiirl”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The second time they meet, it’s in darkness, stars knitted into the night sky as magic crackles the air. 

Yet they meet more because of the calculated hissing of Enchantress in her ear, but either way, when they meet, June is screaming in the confinements of the witch. Beating against the chest of her capturer, screaming to the walls of her mind. She can feel the darkened soul that holds her body slow, and she sees through her eyes a woman. Tall. Pale skin. Scarlet lips bleeding and messing with blue and red eye shadow.

A pout, and soft words. June watches Harley stalk to Enchantress. And she repeats over and over, almost screaming for the woman to:  _ Turn. Back. GO! Before it’s too l- _

 “I lost my puddin’. Can you get him back?”

_ You can’t do this! Let her go! Enchantress Enchantress Enchantress!  _ She repeats her name over and over, pleading for the woman inside her to resist and back down. June can’t watch, can’t bear to be the body of a murderer. To see her own face take the lives of more people.

And June never meant to hurt her, to crawl on her hands and knees, to throw Harley’s body into a wall. To watch her roll, to feel the  _ witches  _ hands choke the blondes neck.

To then….nothing.

Just the searing white, hot touch of Harley Quinn in her chest. Her fingers grasping her very heart, and June feels this  _ bliss.  _ A detachment. Harley smiling with her tongue poking the corner of her mouth as she holds a deteriorating heart in her hands.

And June, in her mind, sobs with relief.

Yet, no, nothing is ever painless with the Enchantress, is it?

Her very being sears, melts as Enchantress leaves her body. June screams, ear piercing screams but they are swallowed by the very depths of the darkness she presides in. Yet, June doesn’t really  _ feel  _ her escape, it’s as if she merely transformed to another place, another time. And before her heart is scrunched between two strong hands, Enchantress laughs in her mind.

An echo.

_ Oh dear child. I haven’t left you yet. _

She awakes to a circle of psychotics staring at her, mud peeling from her face. Rick holds her, and sobs with relief and cradles her body but June's’ eyes are glazed over, mouth open, her stare trained on Harley Quinn. A perfect bat swung over her shoulders as bubble gum pops and cherry lips grin.

 “Hey cutie. Did ya miss me?”

  
  
  
  


 

June is escorted to a helicopter, blanket tight around her shoulders as Rick frets over anything and everything. She used to find it cute, the way his eyebrow would crease and the way his lip jutted ever so slightly out. Now? 

Enchantress has turned it ugly, and this slight shadow in her heart reminds her of the fact.

Instead, June laughs lightly, brushing off Rick with an appreciative shrug of her shoulders. “I’m fine. A hundred percent. I’m just glad you’re okay”

And she  _ is.  _ She’s glad he’s smiling and walking and kissing her forehead with words like “I nearly lost you”

June revels in it, closes her eyes softly as she grasps the edges of the blanket. She can be content for now, she can make Enchantress, who still rattles ever so distantly in her mind, to let her love him again. To...to...make her  _ love  _ him again.

She shakes her head slightly. No, no. That’s not right.

_ Make herself? _

At that thought,  _ her  _ voice seeps into her bones and June glances up. Just in time to catch Harley sheathing her gun and smiling towards Deadshot.

 “I can hotwire a car, need a lift?”

 “Oh I am  _ so  _ not letting you drive”

She watches Harley pout, swinging her bat around like a piece of string. “Meanie”

And June suddenly starts, jumping up out of the helicopter with Rick calling after her, beelining for the other woman. Because after of all this? Even after  _ knowing  _ Harley Quinn’s history, her torment, her twisted mind and thoughts, June still knows one thing for certain.

The infamous Harley Quinn, saved her life.

 “Miss Quinzel?”

It makes Harley freeze, her back to June as the other woman catches up. Slightly out of breath from the energy that’s been harnessed from her body. And she watches the muscles in Harley’s back tense, and for a moment June wonders if she said something wrong. But seconds later it falls from her shoulders almost instantly as she turns around. Her finger pointed to her own chest as she bites her bottom lip.

 “Who, me?”

And June suddenly feels small next to her, her mind flashing back to the jail cell.

_ It’s okay. I hear the voices too. _

_ Mwah! _

The archeologist stutters slightly, bringing the blanket more around her shoulders, shielding from the rain that still slightly pours down. She hadn’t even realised, but the others members of the Suicide Squad are watching, eyebrows raised at the little scene. Harley acts as if they haven’t ever kissed, that she never forcefully pressed her lips to Junes.

 “T-thankyou. I wanted to thank you. Personally. For saving my life?”

And Harley’s eyes light up, smile wide as she gestures around the group with her bat. June has to duck quickly as she spreads her arms in a carelessly wide sweep, the bat just missing her head. “See guys! You don’t  _ have  _ to ask for a thank you”

And Harley turns back to her, bending down slightly from her heels to kiss June on the cheek. Leaving the faintest lipstick mark as June frowns, taken aback. “Anytime dol” She then pulls back, frowning with a finger to her lip. “Although, you  _ did  _ try and kill my friends”

June closes her eyes, frowning softly as she folds her arms almost self consciously. “That was Enchantress. Never me. I’m so sorry for everything I’ve-”

Harley laughs, chewing loudly on her bubble gum as she bounces on the balls of her feet. “I like this girl! Apologizing to the bad guys. How cute!”

June chuckles bewilderedly, looking to the other woman as if she were...well.  _ Mad.  _ Crazy. A lunatic.

 “Uh, well I  _ was  _ just an evil sorceress. Gives me more of a reason to be held accountable for my actions”

 “Oh hun, if ya wanna be one of us. Pro tip: don’t feel remorse”

And June almost recoils, scoffing as she folds her arms, the blanket still draping her now soaked body. “No offence. The last thing I want to be is one of you. I’m not...like that”

And Harley winks as she leans in, June once again, trapped in her gaze. Unable to escape. The unsettling thing? June doesn’t know if she wants to. She doesn’t even know if she wants to be free of the other womans influence. Her sweet scent, piercing eyes, the way her voice travels her bones.

 “Well, ya just flattened a city. Killed hundreds.  _ But  _ on the bright side, we’ll be roomies!”

And Harley claps her hands together in glee, piggytails swinging with her movement. She notices June's deepened fearful look, at the realisation that  _ yes, someone has to take responsibility for the attack. _

Which, was Enchantress.

Whom, inhabited  _ June Moone’s _ body.

Harley rolls her eyes at the other woman’s horrified expression, saying almost off handedly:

 “Oh come on, it’ll be fun! We can get familiar with each other's screams”

The blanket around June’s body feels like boulders, weighing her down. She’s once again drowning, just like Enchantress made her feel.

An almost barely there whisper travels around her mind, and June looks to Harley, squeezing her eyes shut as rain continues to fall. They mix with her tears, and before Rick comes over, saying something along the lines of “Harley that’s enough” she hears Harley tutt. Shaking her head in forced compassion.

 “Oh don’t worry,” And Harley’s voice changes, a giggle travelling up her throat as she goes on her tippy toes to wave goodbye at June’s and Ricks retreating bodies, her voice drowning in the rain. “She’ll be in safe hands!”

And when June gets in the helicopter, Rick whispering soothing words, she peers out the window. And Harley is still waving, makeup running as she grins. June leans back, head against the headrest as she screams into her hands, almost comically like a pillow.

_ Fuck.  _

 


	2. she's like a fix to me (my early morning champagne)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note! 
> 
> I just remembered the relieved smile Harley does when June awakens after having Enchantress ripped from her. Then it prompted me to write. Like lots. And all your comments! Thankyou! They’re really such big motivation for me to write, the receival of this fic has been amazing :) 
> 
> ps : Let’s pretend the Joker never comes and saves Harley. For plot reasons (but mainly gay reasons)
> 
> pps: you can find me at @lesbianspacepilot on tumblr for when updates are coming!
> 
> Enjoy!

 

 

 

June never thought that the echoing drone of bar cells being opened would be her nightmare. 

But it is.

And  _ god  _ did it make her flinch.

A guard at the front reception area watches her carefully, a form for her to fill out patiently stretched out to her. June grabs it, reads the first line and closes her eyes because  _ this is real, this is real and I’m here for god knows how long and I’ll be sharing with  _ **_her_ ** _ and- _

 “The form is just for you to be aware of the sleeping arrangements,” The guard sighs, rolling over to a desk in his chair to grab a pen. “Unfortunately space has been tight around here sweetheart. Nothin’ we can do about it.”

June nods absentmindedly, her hand shaking slightly as she grabs the pen. It doesn’t, at all, help that the handcuffs already tight around her wrist make it difficult to write. Her hair falls in front of her face in straight tendrils, security so locked down not even  _ hair ties  _ allowed in the jail. And she tries to sign, tries to stop the tear that tracks down her cheek and her spine from tingling and it’s isn’t until Rick grabs her wrist softly, smiling warmly towards June that she finds it safe to breathe.

 “It’s okay. You’ll be okay. It’s only temporary”

_ Temporary? _

June almost chuckles, almost spits something unfair towards Rick in spite because  _ he’s  _ not the one about to spend time in hell. To knock on the doors of Satan’s bedroom. She might be being slightly dramatic, but those  _ screams  _ are back again and June hates it because Enchantress, even thought to be gone, touches the hair on her neck ever so softly. Reminding June of the bloodshed.

Instead she turns around and hugs him, face in his neck as she breathes him in. “Just-”

And she takes a breath, closes her eyes and tries to remember what the sun feels like. “Just don’t wait for me.”

She’s already being escorted through the jail’s main doors before Rick can answer her. His face slightly crestfallen because maybe he’s finally realised that after all this time, after the months prior to June walking concrete halls, to Rick fighting like hell against Amanda Weller to shorten her sentence, maybe he realised it’s inevitable and the justice system is fucked and a woman who has never killed a soul is now spending years behind bars.

June squeezes her eyes shut, because remembering  _ good  _ things, warm things like his arms will make her go insane. She tries to think of her work instead, listing off random findings of her career.

June turns her head away from him, looking forward as a guard holds her by the elbow. The guard is tall, a woman in her early 40’s that looks to June in pity as they walk.  _ God,  _ the last thing she wants from others is  _ pity. _

And as they’re walking, the hall seeming to never end, fists bang on cell walls and yells trail after. The screaming and moaning of prisoners locked away piercing her ears. June shivers, and it isn’t until the guard speaks does she realise how out of it she was.

 “You the girl staying in cell 17?”

June thinks back, opening her mouth as she remembers the form she filled out. “Uh, yes. That’s me”

The guard blows a breath of air out, grabbing a set of keys from her belt. “Damn kid. Didn’t think Amanda would actually do it”

June frowns, and nearly stops walking as she blurts out. “Do what exactly?”

The guard looks to her as if it’s obvious, raising an eyebrow as they make it to her assigned cell. The heavy metal door looms over her, and June trails her eyes up the length of it as the guard answers her. “You know, lock up someone innocent” At June's’ surprised look, the guard smiles. “I heard about that witch in ya. Don’t know which is worse, having to come here, or having to bunk with another prisoner”

June lets the sleeves of her oversized prisoner uniform fall over her hands, nervously playing with the ends as she half smiles. She guesses it’s the last time, in a very long time, that she’s going to be smiling again.

 “I’m going to take a wild guess and say bunking with someone else?”

The guard shrugs, shoving the heavy key into the doors lock. “Depends on who it is”

June holds her elbows, and maybe her ‘roomate’ isn’t the worst of the bunch. “Harley Quinn, actually”

The guard freezes, key turned as the door opens with a heavy groan. And June watches how she turns around and opens the door for her, unlocking her handcuffs and nodding once. “Nice knowing ya kid”

And June is left there, in an empty cell save for two beds on opposite sides of the room, as the door slams shut, making her jump. A stream of cool sunlight hits her eye, and she squints at the absolute  _ coldness  _ that is the cell. She rubs at her wrists, wincing at the marks the cuffs left.

_ Nice knowing you? What did she mean? Harley doesn’t seem- _

Just as she thinks it, the door slams open again, forcing June to spring back against the back wall with a hand to her heart. “Christ!”

A male guard smiles and enters, shaking his head in a hidden joke. “You wish darlin”

And June can see behind him, four more men struggling with something unseen, June can hear grunts as they hold whatever it is down, the squeaks of a wheelchair accompanied by giggles. And June just knows, she  _ knows  _ that giggle. She has heard that sweet high pitched laugh before and the drop before she sighs.

Long pale legs kick a guard in the stomach and June watches him double over, she finds herself stepping further back into the wall, as if wanting to melt away into it.

 “You guys going easy on me, aren’t ya?”

_ Harley. _

June wonders briefly why relief floods her body at the other womans voice.

Yet the guard just ignores Harley, and looks June once over, seeming to find her non threatening as he waves in his friends, flicking out his baton. “Alright boys, bring her in”

And June watches, with her mouth agape, as a blonde mess is thrown below her. A gag is tied around Harley’s neck that once must have been around her mouth, and her hands are bound in front of her, her body falling limp on her side as she struggles against the ropes. The door slams shut, and Harley yells: “See ya next time boys!” as June hurries over to help the other woman up.  It’s strange, June thinks, that she is forced up against a wall at the sight of guards.

But at Harley? A known serial killer, psychotic schizophrenic? June finds herself kneeling, helping her untie the ropes. And Harley looks up to her with a grin, pale pink lips glistening in the low light as June asks. “Are you alright?”

And Harley’s face drops just a fraction, her eyebrows furrowed as she looks up to June with her mouth slightly open. “Huh”

June frowns, hands stilling on the other womans bound wrists. “What?”

She watches as Harley just bites her lip, leaning closer as she tries to grab a strand of June’s hair, just to have her hand slapped away making Harley frown and pout. “It’s pretty.”

And June rolls her eyes, finally freeing Harley’s hands as she clears her throat slightly. “Yeah well, not for touching. Sorry”

Harley pouts some more, stands up, and swings her arms around in boredom. “So, roomie, what ya in for?”

June frowns, and folds her arms. “Harley, you  _ know  _ what I’m in for” The other woman rolls her eyes and walks over to the bed opposite, sitting down as she bounces.

 “Oh come on. Humour me. I’m bored”

June gathers that’s the deciding factor on bed assignment, and sits on the one vacant. She watches wearily how calm Harley seems to be, so opposite to what June met her as. She’s just idly swinging her legs, twirling her straw like hair around her finger as she tilts her head. Listening to every word from June’s mouth.

 “You’re ridiculous. You literally tore my heart from my chest and-”

 “Oh and what a heart!” Harley leans forward, grinning as she rests her chin on her hand. “Speaking of, how’s the love birds?”

Harley’s interest in her love life catches June of guard, smiling bewilderingly as looks to the other woman.

 “What of it exactly?”

Harley rolls her eyes, head lulling with the action. “Phsst. Don’t tell me there’s trouble in paradise”

June frowns slightly, holding her hands between her knees as a cold breeze passes through. Making her body shiver. Harley sits there like the cold is part of her bones.

“Well, not exactly-” And June stops herself, opening her mouth in barely contained laughter.  _ God it sounds like I’m already mad _ . -”wait, why am I discussing my love life with you?”

Harley moves to stretch with her hands above her head, and that’s when June notices her clothing, her words trailing off. It’s the prison uniform, but the top half is tied just below her breasts, the pants ripped and shredded as if she tore at the cloth with her nails. And June, with a blush, can’t tear her eyes away from her body even if she tried. How her hair falls in blonde, bleached straight tendrils down her back and shoulders. Dirty and uneven, as if the owners hands have pulled too tightly, wearing the once luscious waves down.

June averts her eyes. Hates the effect the other woman has on her.

 “Dunno. But hun, I ain’t ever had a bed before here. So I’m gonna take full advantage of this. Night!”

And with a quick wave Harley is facing the wall, turned away from June as the other woman gapes at her sudden mood change. “Wait, what-”

And the curfew siren goes off, lights shutting down as June is plunged into unsettling, deep, never ending darkness.

On the other side of the room.

Sleeping next to  _ Harley Quinn. _

June tries to reason with herself, closes her eyes, and sleeps to the knowledge that even as Enchantress, Harley has most likely killed more people than her. Or murdered. Or tortured. Or-

It’s a strange comfort thought, but June flips onto her back, pulling the useless sheets around her. And hasn’t thought once about how dangerous Harley is, how unhinged; a ticking time bomb.

How the other woman sleeping soundly next to her, if she felt like it, could decide out of sheer boredom to rip her throat out. June screws her eyes shut, and hopes to God Harley already tearing her heart out was enough.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It’s odd to say the least, sleeping without another voice inside your head. 

June can’t remember much before Enchantress, before being two instead of one. But she  _ does  _ remember what a good night's sleep was like. As her dreams are peaceful, soft, something about a beach and her mother holding her hand as they laugh and make sand castles.

It shatters as she hears Harley scream.

June bolts up, almost winded out of her sleep as the sudden yell and cry of Harley pierces the air. It’s mixed with sobbing, then laughter, then sheer delirious mumbling and Jane squints into the darkness to her thrashing body. The only light being that crack in the wall, moonlight illuminating Harley’s sweating, moving form.

 “Harley?”

June could try and keep the worry out of her voice, but the other woman’s noises are so... _ unsettling  _ that it has June up and out of bed, softly padding over to her. A steady hand to the other womans shoulder as she shakes slightly.

June bases it on wanting more sleep, but if she was honest with herself? A spark of worry filtered through her at the distressing screams from the older woman. “Harley? Wake up, it’s just a dream. Okay?”

There’s no response, Harley just still whimpering and tossing, hair sticking to her forehead as she flings onto her back. June frowns, shaking harder and raising her voice, growing increasingly worried as Harley’s chest rises and falls, as she screams out: “No! Stop!” over and over again like a mantra seared into her memory.

 “Harley! Wake up, everything's gonna be okay-”

And June, suddenly, is gasping for air. Harley’s hands tight around her throat as she pushes up into June, tackling them both to the floor as the woman above her straddles her, pushing down with a dazed and glassy gaze, giggling and grinning. Seeming not even awake.

June gasps, choking on her words. “Stop! P-please. Harley s-stop..”

And Harley fake pouts, still lost in her own mind. “Oh, don’t you like that Mister J?”

June grabs her wrists, pushing upwards, alleviating some pressure. But Harley is strong, resisting as she holds tighter while June widens her eyes, barely able to breathe out.

 “Harley! It’s m-me. June. Please-”

And suddenly, Harley relaxes, thighs and legs still firmly wrapped above June’s torso as the woman beneath her breathes in the air greedily, coughing and gasping. And June watches, still in slight fear, how Harley frowns towards her, blinking once in a confused daze.

And June, if she was concentrating on Harley’s face and not her breathing, she’d find crestfallen  _ remorse.  _ Harley looking at her hands in shock, her eyes sweeping June’s hand printed neck as she winces.

 “You’re not my puddin”

June is left silent, chest heaving and mouth parted slightly as she leans up on her elbows to let her lungs breathe. Feeling Harley shift above her, not moving from her position. “No, I’m  _ not” _

Harley must hear her anger, and glances down to the fury in June’s eyes, scrambling off the woman and into her own bunk, looking like a kicked puppy. “I’m-”

And June’s anger seizes her body as she rubs at her neck, using her own bed as support as she lifts herself up. “What? Sorry? You almost fucking killed me!”

Harley simply looks up, eyes wet. And nothing ever, in June’s entire life, would have prepared herself to see  _ the  _ Harley Quinn wipe her eyes with her forearm, hiding behind a curtain of hair.  June wonders of the horrors lurking in her dreams, and it’s stupid, so  _ insanely  _ stupid that she feels  _ sorry  _ for her. Sorry for the crazed woman across from her.

But Harley simply turns over, sheets crumpled on the floor as she taps on the cell wall. “Night”

June swallows, and whispers into the darkness as she curls in on herself. Holding to the fabric of her shirt like an anchor. “Goodnight Harley”

That’s the first night. It seems like bliss compared to the second.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 “Gooodmorning sunshine!”

 “Holy shit!”

June screams as Harley leans but  _ centimetres  _ from her face, noses touching as she straddles June’s stomach and bounces in excitement. And if she wasn’t focusing on how warm the other woman was, she’d notice how Harley is literally on top of her when not 6 hours ago she was choking her and nearly murdering her in cold blood.

June wonders what went wrong in her life to get her to  _ this  _ point.

_ Ah, right,  _ June thinks,  _ 6000 year old witch taking over my body. _

So she takes a breath, and closes her eyes as she sighs. “Jesus, you scared me to death”

Harley above her grins, giggling as she bites her lip. “I mean I  _ could-” _

 “No”

 “Gotcha”

And June raises an eyebrow at the woman above her, her arms trapped at her sides as she leans up on her elbows instead. “Uh, you going to get off of me, or?”

Harley puts a finger to her chin, faking a thoughtful look. “Hmm. Nope! Ya wanna know why?”

June sighs, blowing a stray piece of her hair out of her eyes. Relenting to that fact that  _ yes _ , she’ll be here as long as Harley wants her to be. “Oh, enlighten me Harley”

And Harley brings her arms up, running her hands through her hair so her fingers catch the ends. Twirling them around as she grins. “Cause it’s my birthday!”

June opens her mouth, eyebrows furrowed as she hums. “Huh. Your birthday?”

 “Hmm!”

 “What does this have to do with you straddling me?”

 “Nothin”

 “Wonderful”

And June flops back down into the bed, closing her eyes and humming. She feels the warmth of a small sliver of light from that crack, and deduces it’s early as-  _ oh of course, that’s why I’m so tired.  _ So June sighs, feeling Harley finally roll off her and go walk across the room, standing at the crack as she soaks in the warmth with a grin.

 “Well, happy birthday. Not much of one being in here, am I right?” June shakes her head with an awkward laugh, seeing how that came out. “Sorry. Just, happy birthday I guess is what I’m trying to say”

Harley turns back in surprise, smiling softer as she slowly rises up and down on the balls of her feet. Stretching her limbs as she murmurs quietly.

 “Thanks”

June smiles to herself, and for the rest of the day watches how Harley turns her sheet into an acrobats rope, finding an old rusted hook on the roof, and swinging to her heart's content.

June wonders why she was ever worried from the start.

  
  
  
  
  
  


 

Scratch that,  _ she knew exactly why.  _

It’s that night her nightmares come back.

Harley, that morning, made it feel like she wasn’t living in hell’s reincarnation. A jail full of tormented, messed up individuals. But that night? Between her sheets and the screaming voices outside their cell, Enchantress manages to whisper. To use, maybe even her last ounce of energy, to torment her again.

The Suicide Squad should have know an entity nearly as powerful as the cosmos itself wouldn’t be destroyed by a bomb.

June watches images of wailing souls, humans of every background screaming in agony. Yelling “ _ June June June”  _ over and over and over again until she can’t breathe. Until the darkness of Enchantress takes over, swarming her vision with her body, stalking back and forth in front of June in her dream.

_ Oh look at you, so weak. Child, what have they done to you? _

June frowns in the darkness, her eyes then turning wide and panicked as Enchantress stalks closer, grinning widely. June is pushed to the ground, and she scrambles on her palms and kicks out with her legs, desperate to be away from  _ her.  _ “No! Leave me alone. Please, I’m begging you”

She feels dark hands grab at her wrists, and she’s pulled backwards, forced to then kneel as Enchantress lowers herself, whispering into her ear and caressing her cheek.

_ We’re one June Moone, you can never escape me. _

Her voice hisses at her ear, and she struggles against the hands at her wrist with tears in her eyes. Her screams of pleading rising, turning to fury as June clenches her jaw and screws her eyes shut.

 “Get out! Go! No, no,  _ no!” _

 “June?”

Harley sits up in her bed, tilting her head in confusion as June screams and thrashes. Watching how her arms cover her face and pull at her hair.

“I said leave me alone!”

And before June can feel it, Enchantresses grip on her heart, energy pushes from her body. Slamming into Harley making the other woman cry out, back hitting the wall with a sickening thud as she’s tossed from her bed. June starts, sitting up and whipping her head back and forth as her eyes flick around the room in fear and panic. To the dissipating energy, the burnt hole in the wall, to the _anger_ in Harley’s eyes. How her teeth grit in fury as she jumps up and darts to June.

 “Why I outta-”

And Harley, reaching for June’s throat, stops short. Watching how June sobs and chest heaving cries wrack her body and how she hasn’t even noticed Harley’s presence. And Harley’s gaze softens, her eyebrows furrowing because she’s never felt anything like  _ this  _ since...

Since  _ him. _

Sympathy.

Compassion.

Care.

_ Protectiveness. _

It makes Harley almost panic, her heart beating faster because  _ no no no. I can’t feel that for anyone other than him. Him Him Him.   _ But June is still crying and holding her stomach, muttering and rocking and all Harley wants to do is hold her. Make her feel okay again.

So she does.

She slips in besides June, taking one of her hands in hers, making June look up in surprise. Harley smiles, bumping their shoulders as June moves closer.

 “It’s ‘k. We all got nightmares ‘bout somethin”

June frowns slightly at Harley’s touch, at her voice at her  _ presence  _ and June in her sleepy state lets her head fall to Harley’s shoulder. Closing her eyes as their hands intertwine, her voice shaking.

 “D-don’t make me see her again.  _ Please” _

And Harley nods fervently, like she understands.

 “Promise”

  
  
  
  
  
  


 

“Hey inmates! Soups up”

June walks to the door, Harley swinging in the middle of the room as June sidesteps her suspended body.  Harley twirls a piece of June’s hair around her finger in passing, it’s so common now June just rolls her eyes, continuing on her path as Harley grins behind her. Yet she frowns when only one tiny bowl of stale pasta is slipped through the hole. She knocks to get the guards attention, hearing them sigh from the other side.

 “What inmate?”

 “Uh, there’s two of us in here”

She see’s the guard shrug, raising an eyebrow. “And?”

June folds her arms, having to stand slightly on her tippy toes to see into the small opened hole. She hears Harley behind her giggle at the action. “You’re cute June”

The guard loses interest at that, shutting the little door with a snap as June folds her arms and goes back down flat on her feet. Turning around to be met with Harley looking towards her upside down, biting her tongue as she points to the floor, stretching her body to its fullest.

June walks over, both their heads at equal level as she lets her lips turn upwards slightly, amused at Harley’s quirks and ticks. “I’m cute when I...stand?”

And Harley swings lightly, nodding her head with owlish eyes as she almost... _ shyly  _ smiles. “Yep”

The sincere answer makes June stop, mouth parted as she finds herself goddamn  _ blushing  _ at the words of Harley Quinn. Walking quickly around Harley to her bed. But before June can sit cross legged and meditate, Harley smiles and grabs her arm, spinning June around to face her again. And one of them miscalculated, maybe Harley or maybe June but suddenly they’re nose to nose again, like all those nights again. And it makes June blush harder as Harley just studies her, pressing a kiss to her nose then to the corner of her mouth, still upside down.

Harley swings back on her suspended sheet, grinning at June’s blush and stammer of: “U-uh, what was that for?”

Harley shrugs, biting her lip as her hair brushes the ground, looking up to the woman across from her with soft eyes. “I like you”

And June finds herself encaptured. Enamoured with the woman across from her, frowning because she should love Rick and she should like his touch and his smile and his laugh but now when she thinks of it all she thinks of is Harley’s. So June replies, walking closer with a warm voice.

 “I like you too”

And they’re a breath away, lips almost touching, June can feel her soft lips barely caress her own. Until Harley grins, pecks her nose, and swings with her high pitched laugh.

June shakes her head with a small laugh, and she would never be able to tell, but the ironic thing? Harley thinks all that too, Harley even thinks more. And as she swings she looks to her, never taking her eyes off the small archeologist, almost in a daze.

_ He  _ fades to nothing, to a small whisper, and all Harley sees is June.

 


	3. she's got a grip that I can't escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thank you so much for your comments! they are such a pleasure to read xx this fic is so wonderful to write, and i don’t plan on stopping yet! You guys are honestly what keeps chaps getting churned out!
> 
> ps; rating may be change depending on future chaps! 
> 
> pps; lots of healing, lots of changes. but this is harley quinn, so it’s going to take a LOT
> 
> as always, enjoy! all mistakes are mine x

 

 

The days they spend together bleed into one giant blur, and June has lost count of the time. Weeks and months falling over the other, and June finds her sleeping with her ‘roommate’ during the days and the nights that merge. 

Sleeping as in, actual  _ sleep. _

Then June thinks of the  _ other _ type of sleeping, and as Harley moves slightly, stretching her legs with her head nestled into June's neck, June blushes. Because thoughts like  _ those _ make her feel so many things at once that she feels like she’s suffocating with Harley’s arm draped across her stomach.

The other woman mumbles in her sleep, frowning at whatever is in her dreams. The archeologist can’t help but smile at the image.

And Harley herself, she feels  _ safe  _ for once. The warm body she’s nestled into feels like home, her dreams less frightening than normal. And with June’s soft breathing, her chest rising up and down, Harley feels herself constantly being lulled to sleep.  _ He _ doesn’t electrify her in her nightmares as frequently, because in her haze of dreaming, Harley hears June singing lullabies with her hoarse, sweet voice and nothing bad plagues Harley’s mind. Her hair is being stroked, June whispering sweet nothings in her ear. Her dreams are calm.

She’s almost...peaceful.

And  _ that  _ scares her to death.

With that thought, Harley’s dream changes, and he’s standing above her with a smile stitched in blood. She mumbles in her sleep, smiling. “It’s you..”

June hums as she opens her eyes, feeling Harley’s lips move against her neck. “Harley?”

And Harley is frowning, her eyebrows knitted together and June without needing to see her dreams just  _ knows  _ the Joker is the subject of Harley’s mind. So she touches ever so softly to the inside of Harley’s wrist, thumb rubbing to wake her up.

 “It’s just a dream. Shh. He’s not here”

Harley slowly opens her eyes, blinking once and adjusting to the darkness. She can see June’s soft mouth, and she bites her bottom lip, so tempted to kiss the other woman and pull her on top of her. Let herself melt into June and forget anything that happened before her.

But  _ he _ laughs in her mind, and Harley frowns because she  _ knows  _ she should hate him and loathe him and be disgusted by the thought that he ever existed. There’s something Harley has never admitted, to others or even to herself. But while looking up to June’s worried eyes, feeling her touch on her wrist, it prompts her to screw her eyes shut. Thinking over;  _ I hate myself for it. I hate myself, I hate myself, I hate myself. _

She sits up in bed, hearing June’s worried “Harley?” as she smacks her forehead and rocks. “Stupid, stupid,  _ stupid” _  Because no, no, _ no _ she shouldn’t still  _ want  _ him because he is bad, bad,  _ bad.  _

And June widens her eyes, taking Harley’s hands in hers as she hushes the other woman. Taking her body in her arms as Harley continues rocking. “Shh. You’re not stupid, why would you say such a thing?”

Harley stares ahead blankly, knees drawn up as June holds her, she listens to the other woman’s heartbeat as if it were the first time she held it. “You ever been in love?”

She asks it like the day on the staircase, Deadshot answering like a textbook sociopath that  _ “No, there’s no room for that with my line of work.” _ So when June furrows her brows and pulls their bodies down to the bed lying back, letting Harley scrunch the fabric of her shirt up in her fist, Harley’s surprised when June answers.

 “Yes and no. Maybe. I think.” June bites her lip thoughtfully. “Does a three month relationship with a guy who was assigned to actually physically steal your heart count?”

Harley smiles, shrugging as she rests her chin on June’s chest to look up to her. And she can’t help but drown in June’s smile. “Hmm. Depends, was he cute?” She feels June chuckle, a warm reverberating hum that warms Harley’s bones.

 “Kinda. Not enough to garner love”

 “Huh”

 “What?”

Harley lets her hand travel to June’s ridden up shirt, tracing circles around her toned stomach making the other woman smile again. “Whaddya consider love then?”

June looks to the ceiling, closing her eyes as she smiles softly at Harley’s touch. “Friendship. A bond between two people that can’t be broken. Kinda like a deep rooted care for someone” At that, June opens her eyes, looking down to Harley as she watches the other woman furrow her brows in thought.

 “Why do you ask?”

And Harley shrugs with a grin, pinching June’s hip bone making the woman beneath her laugh.

 “Nothin’. Just been thinkin”

Harley jumps up, stretching as she reaches for her rope of sheets, pulling herself up and swinging. June lays on her side, head held up by her hand, and watches how Harley moves. How she almost  _ dances  _ in the air for her. Harley hangs upside down, and it isn’t the blood rushing to her head and it isn’t the different view on the world now that has her thinking that maybe, just maybe, she loves June.

Because when June wakes at night, shivering and pleading with Harley to keep Enchantress away, Harley wishes she could go back in time and hit the witch a thousand more times with her bat. But instead she just lets June fall asleep on her chest, tears staining her shirt while Harley thinks of all the ways to summon a dead witch and make her  _ pay. _

She said as such to June that night, leg crossed over her knee as she tapped her foot in the air to an unknown beat. Feeling June cry into her body. “Wanna summon her so I could beat her up?”

June laughs wetly, wiping under her eyes as she chuckles. “I appreciate the thought, but god don’t make me-”

And Harley suddenly turns serious, her foot stalling on its tapping as she turns on her side, face to face with the other woman. “I wouldn’t make ya do anything you don’t wanna do, okay?”

June, surprised at the uncharacteristic seriousness, nods once. Swallowing as she simply closes her eyes and says. “I like that about you”

Harley raises her eyebrow, playing with June’s hair. “Huh?”

 “You care about people, even if you don’t want to admit it”

At that, Harley frowns, rolling her eyes with a pout. “Pssht. No I don’t. Just, ya know, felt like punching something.  _ Totally  _ coincidence it’s that bitch of a witch”

June nods sleepily, smiling softly as she answers. “Uh huh. Whatever you say Harl’s”

And Harley blows a strand of hair from her eyes, pulling June against her front from the cold, June snorting as Harley grumbles. “I  _ don’t  _ care about you”

The protective arm around June, how Harley clings to her like her only anchor, says otherwise. And both woman sleep to the knowledge of their mutual, messed up, prison tainted love.

  
  
  
  
  


 

 

It’s the week after next that June really realises just  _ where  _ she is. 

She’s been keeping track of time by scratching into the wall with a stray rock, tallying the days with lines. Next to June’s weird prison calendar is little scribbles of smiley faces with x’s and o’x of Harley’s. And June thinks the big ‘HARLEY WAS HERE’ with a love heart is so _her_ that she smiles whenever she passes it.  

But it’s on the 13th line that a guard bangs on the metal door and opens the little panel. Harley swings right side up on her sheet, and June looks to Harley in confusion from her position on the ground, her back to the floor as she looked up to Harley and talked.

The other woman shrugs, looks to the door, and giggles as she calls out. “Sorry boys, this cell is ocupado!”

But the door slams open with a groan, making June jump up and Harley slip down from her sheet with a frown. Both women look to the other, never having visits from guards unless lock down has been prompted or meals are served. Or if, that one time, Harley called a guard a “rat faced pussy” through the door.  _ That  _ one was an exception.

And June doesn’t even realise, until three guards are surrounding them, how Harley has stood in front of her. Arm softly across her stomach, in a protective stance.

A bearded man waltz’ in, rough towels in his hands that he throws to the ground with a smug smile.

 “Shower time inmates”

June freezes, totally forgetting her state of personal hygiene as two guards move forward with handcuffs. Harley bares her teeth, snapping at the air as she giggles when a guard grabs her by the forearms, roughly pushing her up against a wall as Harley winces with a grin.

June moves towards Harley with a frown and “Hey! Go easy on her-” but a guard has already stepped forward, locking her arms behind her back with handcuffs as he laughs.

 “What, go easy on  _ her?  _ Lady you seen what she can do? I ain’t takin’ any chances”

At that June locks her jaw, and thinks  _ yes I’ve seen what she can do. To the people she  _ **_cares_ ** _ about.  _ But instead she watches how Harley struggles against the tight cuffs making her skin raw, turning around to June, winking, and practically skipping to the door.

The look calms June, and wherever they’re taking them can’t be  _ that  _ bad if Harley is skipping, right? But then, walking behind Harley and the guard that holds her by the elbow, June whispers into her ear.

 “Harls, where are we going?”

And Harley glances behind her with a frown and an obvious eye roll. “Well the showers of course silly! It’s okay baby, you’re in safe hands, remember?”

And June’s flashed back to that day at the helicopter, feeling like it was years ago that a drenched Harley said those words, not realising the other woman was serious. And when the affectionate name falls from Harley’s lips, June feels stupid because  _ god  _ they’re in prison and Harley makes her feel like she’s in highschool again.

And everything is okay, June feels  _ okay  _ when Harley skips and hums in front of her as they walk to an unknown darkness, people screaming around them and prisoners madly laughing as they bang on the metal doors.

It isn’t until a guard at a type of halfway station grabs Harley, the woman in question frowning and attempting to shake his grip off. “Hey! Hands off the goods sugar” But the guard just ignores her, holding tighter as a wheelchair is pulled out. And June widens her eyes, and is so  _ familiar  _ with the way Harley’s back tenses when she has bad thoughts, when she remembers something in the deep recess of her mind.

And Harleys gaze widens, immediately squeezing her eyes shut and screaming, making June’s heart almost  _ break  _ at the noise. “No! No, no, no, no-” She kicks out with her bare legs, guards grabbing her thighs and forcing her down into the chair. June tries to lunge forwards to help Harley, yelling out to the guard holding her back.

 “Let me go! What are you doing with her?” But the guard holding her doesn’t answer, just looks forward as June is forced to watch Harley, through a throng of bodies, be forced into the chair with her arms strapped to the arm rests. June yells out again, struggling against the guard as she tries to catch Harley’s wild eyes.

 “Harley! Look at me,” Yet the woman in questions head is bowed, shaking back and forth as she yanks at the straps. Feeling a guard tighten them as she whimpers. June speaks again, fighting against the guard that holds her back. “Harls, hey. Shh. It’s okay. Can you look at me? Can you do that for me?”

Harley screws her eyes shut,  _ shaking  _ as a guard flicks a syringe and grips her forearm. Harley’s eyes widen, and her voice shakes. “W-watcha doing with that mista? N-no, I don’t-”

And June looks on in horror, yelling to the guard about to insert the needle. “Stop! Hey!” Her whole body is  being thrown out of the guards grip, but they hold tight to June as she watches, tears now building up in her eyes. Voice cracking,  _ breaking  _ for the woman in front of her. “Y-you can’t-”

June hears Harley shriek, bending over in pain as a bright pink liquid is injected into her veins. And June sinks into the guard’s grip. Holding a hand up to her mouth as a tear lands on her finger.

And June, in that moment, for the first time in her life, wishes Enchantress would come at the call of her name. Manifest in her body, plague her mind with darkness. Because when she shuts her eyes, heart constricted at Harley’s whimpering, June wishes she could rain down hell, destroy anyone who has ever hurt Harley. Use Enchantress to seep darkness into every guard that has laid a hand on her.  

It’s morbid and dark, June thinks, but Harley’s cries just cut at every edge of her mind and it’s enough for her to start whispering  _ Enchantress  _ over and over again in vain.

Yet all she receives is blackness at the edge of her vision, nothing more, nothing less. A faint whisper of something destructive.

  
  
  
  
  
  


June is dragged away kicking and yelling, shouting to put her down and let Harley go. Her prison uniform is ripped off her body as she’s forced to stand under lukewarm hose of a shower. She’s thankfully allowed at least underwear, so her arms are around her breasts, holding any modesty left.

_ This _ is when she realises where she is.

In a cold tiled shower, guards and other prisoners surrounding her in rows upon rows of open cubicles. She shivers, and thanks the water running down her face to hide her tears. And she thinks of Harley, where she is, if she’s okay, what’s being  _ done  _ to her. And she curses herself because if the roles were reversed, Harley would have bitten the nearest guard on the neck if it meant the safety of June.

Not the most romantic of ways to save a ‘damsel in distress’ but June can’t help but scrub at her skin harder with soap until her skin is raw. Washing away the sound of Harley’s screams. How  _ useless _ she was.

How fast that  _ liquid  _ seeped into the other woman’s veins. 

And just as she thinks it, the woman of June’s thoughts is thrust into the shower stall, giggling as she is thrown to the ground in a crazed heap. Water cascading down her now damp hair, clinging to her thin frame. And June, ever so quickly, forgets about modesty and rushes to Harley, kneeling and holding her cheeks under her hands. Checking over every inch of the other woman’s body with wide and worried eyes.

 “Harley? Harley can you hear me? Are you alright? Harls I-”

And the woman below her looks up, smiling with her tongue between her teeth. And June has never seen her look so...unhinged. Damaged and lost.  _ Broken. _

 “Hey angel. What’s a pretty face like yours doin’ here?”

And June frowns, because Harley’s eyes are glazed over, her smile dopey as she sways on the wet cold ground while June runs her hand over Harley’s hair, trying to see her face better from the damp locks. “It’s me. June, remember?”

And water cascades over the two, both naked from the waist up as a guard yells out to them both. “Hey! No touching inmates”

June drops her hands from Harley’s cheeks with a reluctant motion, and notices how the woman immediately frowns from the loss. And June looks on in worry, heart pounding in her chest as Harley looks up, eyes lighting in recognition as she bites her lip and giggles. “Baby!” And June feels her damp hair be played with the other woman’s fingers, like so many other times before as Harley pouts. “I missed you”

And June sighs a sigh of relief, closing her eyes while her hands shake. “Oh god you’re okay”

Harley looks to her with a confused frown, still sitting on the cold tiled floor. “My butt hurts”

June rolls her eyes with a smile, looking out for guards as she hugs Harley close and pulls her up with her. Standing under the harsh spray of the water. And their naked bodies touch, slide together, but it isn’t..well,  _ erotic,  _ June thinks. It’s just simply  _ being  _ as Harley shimmies in her grip and kisses her cheek, making June blush.

 “Oooh, kinky”

And whatever happened before falls away as June helps Harley shower, her limbs and body too drained to even keep herself up as June holds her by the waist with supportive smiles. And when a guard sees them, they separate quickly, giggling under a spray of cold ice. And it’s as if nothing has happened, as if Harley is Harley and June is June.

Yet it’s when they’re back in their cells, new uniforms and cleaner bodies with June curled around Harley from behind, does Harley’s shoulders shake. She tries to keep silent, to shut her eyes and pull her hair to distract herself from her tears. But June feels her shaking, and mumbles against her neck softly while bringing Harley's’ hands from her hair and to the bed, still holding her from behind.  

 “Shh, it’s okay”

It’s been like this, Harley depending on June’s touch. Her voice, the way it drops to a husking whisper when laced with sleep and Harley has never  _ felt  _ this type of care. This care that isn’t just gain for the other person. When it isn’t twisted, when it isn’t manipulative and wrong and-

Harley puts her knuckle between her teeth, screwing her eyes shut as June hushes her. “Harls. It’s not you. It never was. It was him, okay?”

Harley’s mind flashes blue and pink, to a barrel of liquid and her limp body in his arms. To the syringe in her arm, to how  _ he  _ did that to her too, but worse and worse and  _ worse _ and her mind flashes to the electricity. How he grinned and struck her with what felt like bolts of fire in her spine.

Her voice shakes as she tries to drown out the thoughts.

 “H-him?”

Harley’s voice is soft, it’s normal high pitch as June sits up and prompts Harley to turn over, looking down to the other woman with her hair falling in soft cascading tendrils. Harley plays with it, closing her eyes as she scrunches up her nose. “My puddin’? But he wouldn’t hurt me…”

 “Harley,” At June’s hand on her cheek, leaning over her, Harley opens her eyes. Her hand still in June’s hair.

 “He hurt you, badly. Very badly, didn’t he?”

At Harley’s reluctant nod, June’s eyes soften more as she feels Harley’s hand in her hair tighten, as if seeking something or someone to hold onto. But then Harley shakes her head repeatedly, frowning as she thinks back to moments in her haze that were...good. Right?

 “But he didn’t mean it! He was always a joker when it came to me, my puddin’ loved me”

And June watches how she smiles, a dazed look as she sighs and the woman above her touches Harley’s cheek. Bringing their foreheads together and almost  _ pleadingly  _ speaks to her. Holding back words at how her heart yearns for Harley, to  _ realise  _ the wrongs in that statement. And all June wants for her, the first thing above herself, is for Harley to find  _ happiness.  _ To let him go. To realise how perfect she is on her own.

So she does, she whispers it with their lips almost touching and June feels how Harley’s fingers in her hair soften at the words. To how Harley’s eyes never leave June’s lips, letting her voice fall over her like the softest of blankets. “He’s not going to hurt you anymore. I promise”

Harley looks up to her, their foreheads still touching, and says with awe touching her words. “You  _ are _ an angel”

And before June can smile, chuckle at the woman beneath her, Harley’s hand runs through her hair again, just to pull her head down quickly and press her lips to hers.

And it’s so soft, slow, languid as their lips move and tongues explore the others mouth. June feels electricity run up her spine at the touch as Harley whimpers ever so softly into the kiss. And June then feels her body collapse into Harley’s as she gasps into her mouth. The blonde woman’s fingers thread through her hair, pulling just enough to make their lips separate. June breathes heavily against Harley’s lips as she stares with her mouth slightly agape. “Harley…”

But Harley looks innocently up, throwing her arms around June’s neck and bringing their bodies ever closer. June feels their fronts touch, and Harley smiles as June closes her eyes with a sigh, feeling Harley’s legs wrap around her waist.

And June looks down, to how  _ soft  _ Harley looks, to how her hair is messed up, to how her collarbones jut out, begging for her lips. Yet before June can do just that, Harley reaches up and takes June’s lower lip between her teeth, both woman closing their eyes as Harley releases it to then kiss her again. Deepening their movements, Harley flips them, using her thighs and legs to switch their positions. June gasps out, drunk on the other woman’s touch as Harley slips her hands up to June’s cheeks. Kissing just below her ear and biting softly.

 “H-Harley, we should stop..”

And Harley pulls back, pouting, kissing June’s nose as she furrows her brows. “You don’t want me?”

June bites her lip, containing her smile at the woman above her. “Nothing of the sort. I just can hear-”

And at that, a guard bangs on the door, yelling into the compartment. “Curfews in five inmates!”

June raises her eyebrow in answer to Harley’s sigh as she blows her hair out of her face in annoyance. “Well that sucks. You  _ sure  _ we can’t pick up where we left off?” Ending it with a signature Harley pout.

And June chuckles, tucking the piece of hair behind Harley’s ear with a soft touch so caring, that it makes Harley hum and close her eyes. “Unless you’d like to in pitch blackness, then yes, be my guest”

Harley frowns, whining as she just lets her body drape June’s. Tracing patterns on her stomach like so many other times before. “You’re no fun” 

June snorts, and rolls her eyes, turning their bodies on their sides so they’re facing one another. And she becomes bold, grabbing at Harley’s upper thigh and hooking the other woman’s leg over her hip. Pulling the flush together as that streak of moonlight catches Harley's’ eyes so perfectly that June loses herself for a moment in time. Their centres are touching with only thin uniforms separating them both as Harley’s eyes go owlish, lips parted slightly as June raises an eyebrow.

 “Is this what you wanted?”

And Harley nods, for once,  _ mutely  _ as June lets her nails rake her thigh as Harley hums affirmatively, as if in a daze from the other woman. “Uh huh. You can keep doing that. Nooo objections from moi”

June bites her lip with a smile, and lets her hands trail up Harley’s arm, to cup the other woman’s jaw tenderly. And just as she leans in again, Harley biting her lower lip in anticipation, the lights shut off and the siren blares. June giggling into Harley’s neck as she shouts out into the open air of the prison.

 “Really? Just when a gal was gonna get some?”

June sombers up, her laugh trailing off as she looks to Harley, kissing her on the cheek. “Goodnight Harls”

And if June didn’t close her eyes softly, lulled by the other woman’s breathing, she would have seen how softly Harley looked towards her. How Harley thought about how it’s the first time she’s been touched with care, love, without it ending in tears and bruises. To how she  _ wanted  _ it, to how safe she felt with June’s fingers and hands on her skin.

And Harley bites her lip, whispering “G’night baby” making June smile in her half sleepy haze. And both woman dream of good things, not an ounce of darkness touching the edges of their minds. And they fall as they sleep, into the arms of the other, breaths soft in the beating silence that surrounds them.

 

 


	4. they say she’s bad for me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh dear god someone give June a hug pls 
> 
> Ps. quote from movie inside! Pretty easy to spot ;) 
> 
> Pps. as always, your comments mean the world to me! And this story wouldn’t be here without you guys’ support and love! <3 thankyou!
> 
> Anyways, enjoy! More updates soon to come x

 

The inevitability of their situation is something, apparently, June didn’t think through. 

_ Falling  _ for Harley Quinn isn’t something she thought through.

Every goddamn decision she’s made up until this point she realises  _ she hasn’t thought through. _

Because falling for Harley? For the way her edges are sharp and rip at June’s smooth curves, the way her voice can lull her, June realises that in a place like this,  _ love  _ can barely breathe between the stone walls and concrete floors. How in between the weeks they’ve been with each other, June hasn’t realised how dark the circles under her eyes are getting. How sleep eludes her and she finds herself staring at Harley’s sleeping face in her insomnia, outlining her jawline and collarbones, detailing the way Harley’s eyelashes falls softly over her cheeks.

And it isn’t until Harley mumbles “You’re starin” does June realise just how  _ tired  _ she is. And she sighs softly, whispering into the air between them as Harley opens her eyes.

 “Oh, sorry”

Harley shrugs, biting her lip to hold her smile in at the way the moonlight catches June’s hair. “Didn’t say I minded”

June smiles softly at that, and plays with a thin strand of Harley’s hair, watching the pink and blue dyed ends merge, letting her fingers touch softly to the other woman’s cheek. And Harley closes her eyes at the touch, nearly falling asleep again while June continues mapping the constellations of Harley’s freckles. To how, without the makeup, she has a stream of them across her nose that June starts counting.

 “Do you ever wonder about your future?”

At the words, Harley opens her eyes, furrowing her brows towards June. And June herself breathes softly, almost suspended in time as Harley opens her mouth slightly with a thoughtful expression. “Huh”

June searches the other woman’s eyes. “Huh” as in good or “huh” as in bad?”

Harley bites her bottom lip, sitting up and feeling June follow her, the sheets around their waist pooling to their thighs. And Harley tilts her head, hair falling softly over her shoulders. “Huh” as in, I don’t get it”

June raises an eyebrow with a soft smile at Harley, and she wonders how she hasn’t just kissed the other woman senseless at how...well,  _ adorable  _ she looks.

 “Do ya mean have I planned it, or do I think about it?”

June can’t help it, and she kisses Harley’s collarbone so softly that it makes Harley shiver. “Think about it”

 “Hmmm.  _ Well” _

Then Harley looks to June mischievously, suddenly grinning as June raises an eyebrow at the look.

 “Harley what-”

And June then finds herself with a lap full of Harley Quinn, the blonde straddling her and pushing her to the bed. June laughs, and Harley bounces in that way when she’s excited, pressing her hands softly to June stomach to hold herself up. “Ya witch showed me a house with white picket fences. Oh! And two kids. That’s not so much what I  _ think about, _ but more what I want”

Then Harley scrunches her nose, thoughtful. “Wait, I think?”

And Harley pokes June’s stomach lightly, making June open her mouth with a smile. “I dunno, but people like us don’t get  _ normal.  _ Normal is a setting on a washing machine baby” 

And with that, Harley rolls off June onto her back, staring up into the ceiling.

To say June is surprised is an understatement, because the countless nights they’ve spent talking about everything and anything in the world, June was under the impression that Harley’s future was something she thought about constantly. The way the other woman spoke about how she loved the city at night, because they reflected stars like a metropolis, had June thinking that her future was just another important thought in her mind. To the way Harley spoke about love as something  _ everyone _ , regardless of background, should be able to experience. How she spoke about it as something you could almost touch.

June leans up on her elbows, looking to Harley as the other woman just traces invisible patterns in the air with her finger.

Maybe it’s the archeologist inside her, maybe it’s her innate ability to want to know and explore  _ more.  _ To understand something she finds unknowable, to brush it’s edges and reveal what it hides. Harley is nowhere  _ near  _ an “it”. But June still finds herself scraping at Harley’s edges, as if knee deep in dirt and holding something not unearthed in decades.

 “You don’t think... _ normal _ is a possibility for me?”

And Harley continues tracing patterns, grinning at something in her own head as June worries her bottom lip. It’s silent a few moments, and June is about to repeat what she said, but Harley then turns her head, looking June up and down in curiosity.

 “I think it is for you. Scouts honour” She presses her hand to her chest as she smiles. Leaning up to kiss June on the forehead. “You just gotta get that witch out of ya first, okay hun?”

And she says it so casually, so blase that June blinks once and has to repeat it over and over in her head for it to settle. Because _ yes _ she’s known Enchantress hasn’t left, that she lingers in the deepest part of her soul and mind. But to hear Harley say it? To confirm that your nightmares live and breathe and talk and that her sleepiness and insomnia isn’t because of the prison she’s in, but because of the woman who crackles in her mind like fire. Building and building and building and June being in  _ here  _ just adds fuel to the flame.

The ironic thing?

Harley is the only thing keeping her sane.

  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

It happens three nights later. 

It’s simple. June is resting, head on her arm as she lays on her side, bed dipping from her weight. She’s watching Harley spin suspended, the other woman grinning upside down to June making her smile. And the movements are so hypnotising, so fluid in the way Harley arches, pushing her chest up with her stomach flexing, making June blush.

Hypnotising enough to make June slowly close her eyes, softly smiling to the thought of Harley. The image of her moon kissed eyes and skin swinging in circles. And she hears Harley sing, humming under her breath like a lullaby. And it’s so beautiful, almost like a siren, that June lets her body succumb. Her mind exhausted after the insomnia that’s not let her rest.

And with her mind tired, her defences down, her lips whisper  _ “Enchantress” _ into the cool cell air in a whisper. Harley tilts her head at the sound, feeling a cold shiver run her spine. She rocks from her position in the air, spinning around to look down at June with a worried frown. “Baby?”

Yet when she turns, it’s not June sitting in the space between them. It’s something twisted, black, darkness slipping off it’s shoulders in wisps of black particles. Harley widens her eyes, mouth opened slightly as she addresses  _ it. _

 “Well, you’re not my June”

Enchantresses eyes snap up to hers, and Harley could be fearful, could be up against the wall whimpering for mercy because she  _ is  _ the woman who ripped her heart out. But Harley swings upside down, watching how Enchantresses cheeks are sunken in, her hair thinner and bones jutting out from every position. It’s so different from June it has Harley wishing the healthier, warmer one would zap back. Smiling as if it was all a joke. Because the body Enchantress inhabits is so  _ sickly  _ looking that Harley can barely keep looking at the face of June, who looks like she’s knocking on death's door with cracked cheeks and black irises.

Harley giggles,  _ enlightened  _ at the image of a witch so powerful looking so meak. “Aw, you don’t look so good” Then Harley pouts, tsking as she swings. “Did the wolves get ya hun?”

Enchantress sways in her spot, mustering next to zero energy to try and stand, her fingers gripping the edge of the bed in anger. She doesn’t even have the energy to materialise to Harley, to escape the cell walls and flee. So she sits there, choking on the black goo that travels up her mouth as she speaks.

And her  _ voice.  _ It’s old, cracking in the middle, a stronger mix of June’s that seeps through as she tries to escape. And Harley doesn’t like that, doesn’t like it one  _ bit  _ that June is trapped again. Screaming from her confinements. But Enchantress then speaks, a boney, almost skeletal finger pointing to Harley.

 “ _ Y-you _ . You’re the o-one who tried to  _ destroy _ me”

Harley rolls her eyes, sighing as she steps on to the floor, hands on her hips. “Lady, give it up. We all got resentment issues. Take a number and I’ll get back to ya”

Enchantress growls, swaying more forcefully as her image flickers, her entire being fading as June inside her fights back. Harley raises her eyebrows as the black power that naturally flows off her drops in thick tar like goo, oozing from her skin.

 “R-remember Harleen Quinz-zel-” And Harley watches, now with slight fear, as Enchantress stands up, legs almost breaking from her weakness as her head ticks, almost like a malfunctioning robot.

“June is mortal,  _ I  _ am not”

And her skeletal jaw almost unhinges as she screams, an ear piercing wail that has Harley pressing her hands to her ears. Screwing her eyes shut at the noise as she backs up against the wall, sliding down as she shakes her head.

 “Get out of my head!”

Harley looks up, watching Enchantress scream at nothing, the voice of June taking over as she fights. And Harley looks on, watches how Enchantress and June almost struggle against the other. June’s flesh coming back under Enchantresses clothing, the chain around her neck dissipating.

And Harley, suddenly, has fire in her eyes as she remembers the nights her and June talked, the archeologist outlining the  _ horror  _ while inside Enchantress. How no light could be seen, no hope, no future, no  _ love  _ could be thought of while inside her. Harley stands, watches how Enchantress has her hands to her head and is hitting every wall of the cell with her body, June slamming against the constraints in her mind trying to free herself.

Then Harley, with gritted teeth, grabs Enchantress, slamming her against a wall while feeling the black goo trail her hands.

 “Hey! Bring back June or I swear I’m gonna-”

Harley’s vision distorts briefly, a haze of light magic splays past her eyes, tricking the dim light that exists in the cell.

 “Harls?”

And Harley finds herself pressed up against the wall with June, her shirt scrunched up in her hands as she looks to  _ June’s  _ face. Her June. With eyes wide and chest heaving, the woman in front of her furrows her eyebrows, looking to Harley up against her and the hands grabbing at her body. And Harley quickly lets go, cupping June’s cheeks as the other woman looks blankly ahead, blinking away the haze as she  _ shakes. _

As everything dawns on her and the nightmares kiss the edge of her vision, as if in promise. In promise that it will  _ never  _ end.

 “You okay?”

June looks up to Harley, to her worried gaze and soft lips. Those freckles across her nose and the tiny scar below her cheek. And June throws her arms around the other woman’s shoulders, holding in her sobs as she buries her face into Harley’s neck. Breathing in her hair, her scent, drowning in everything  _ Harley  _ to forget Enchantress was ever in her again.

And June feels safe, the cold leaves her body, and she can breathe again.

 “Y-yeah,” She looks up, Harley still frowning in deep worry, the other woman’s soft, sweet breath on her cheek. “I’m okay”

  
  
  
  
  
  


 

She  _ knew  _ the day would come. 

Doesn’t mean it’s any less harder to accept.

A guard visits when the sunlight through the crack is shining into the corner of the room, and both women perk up as the heavy door groans. June is lying on the hardened floor, singing softly as Harley listens and swings on her sheet in time with her voice. June said it’s something from a movie called “Wizard of Oz” as she put it, Harley just likes the way June’s voice is rough and hoarse, yet sweet and high as it echoes around the room. And they talked for hours on that movie, June retelling how her mother used to watch it every Saturday with her, how June saw the yellow brick road in her dreams and Harley finds herself falling in love with the way  _ June  _ loves things.

How her favourite character was the goofy lion and his soulful eyes reminded her of Harley’s.

And she softly smiles at that, swinging as if in a daze.

Yet, the peace is broken as the guards trail in, automatically grabbing for Harley as the woman squirms suspended in the air. Kicking and yelling as the men grab at her limbs. June is already handcuffed, being pushed against the wall as they try and subdue the other woman while June grits out while her face is against the brick. Muffling her words.  

 “You know, if you did this calmly, she wouldn’t react like that”

And the guard holding her grins, chuckling to himself. “And where’s the fun in that sweetheart?”

June sighs at that, putting her forehead to the wall waiting for them to either a) tranquilise Harley, or b) cuff her and be on with whatever twisted game they have in store. And she wonders just what  _ exactly  _ they’re here for, the reason they’re both being taken again. June’s heart then skips as she hears Harley giggle, worry always prevalent whenever guards handle her.

She must be having an off day, or maybe one of the guards grabbed her wrongly or we’re too rough because June gets her first glimpse of how  _ terrifying  _ she is. How monstrous she can be. And it’s strange, June thinks, that she sits with her under moonlight and they kiss the pain away. Be it soft or desperate. June has never seen her like  _ this,  _ has never seen Harley practically grab the guard's hand, twisting it as a sickening  _ crack _ filters the air. He screams out in pain, Harley laughing at the noise as a guard runs up behind her, baton in hand. June sees out of the corner of her eyes, with her mouth open, how Harley just turns and effortlessly grabs it mid swing. Taking the weapon, and, like June watched her while in Enchantress so many months ago, swings it like bat across the guard's face. His helmet and nose cracking under the hit as he crumples to the floor.

Harley laughs, watching the guards circle her and push her up against the wall with June, cuffing her with binds and chains. She rolls her eyes with a sigh, smiling to June’s shocked expression.

 “Oh come on! I was bored, give a gal a break”

But before June can reprimand her, tell her that  _ no Harley, smacking people  _ _ doesn’t _ _ get you through life _ , a guard escorts them out of the cell. Chuckling as he does so.

 “You ladies enjoy each others company?”

June glares, shaking off the hard grip of the guard holding her. Harley perks up, popping the ‘p’ as she skips besides June. “Yep! Cozy”

The guard continues walking, and suddenly Harley frowns, staring ahead as it all dawns on her. The familiar walls. That crack in the floor. How this hallway  _ echoes  _ more distantly then the rest. How a familiar guard smiles at her in passing, saluting her in a cruel smile.

 “Uh, baby?”

June absentmindedly hums, still trying to struggle free of the guards grip. But Harley won’t take no for an answer, elbowing June as she gasps. “Harls! What?”

And Harley gulps, the guards stopping at the familiar barred door. How through the window, a cage sits empty. Her espresso machine sitting idly in waiting.

 “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yep. separation was inevitable *sigh*. yet this is my writing, so they’ll find a way ;)


	5. must be love on the brain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note: Wow. Three months later? 
> 
> I'm so sorry, really, leaving you all hanging like this. I could rattle off the usual blah blah personal life and work/education. (Which yes is true lmao) but I also was having a really hard time finding out where to go with this story. BUT i just said 'fuck it i feel bad its been nearly four months DO IT JAS'
> 
> So I did. And I didn't even realise how much i missed these two. I hope you enjoy, and you can definitely expect regular updates from now on. Promise xx 
> 
> As always; thankyou! And enjoy these two as the story continues <3
> 
> (Count this as a sorry and a Christmas present to all you wonderful people) xx

 

 

-

 

 

Harley thought coffee would be a good substitution for being in prison. 

She thought wrong. Oh so very, very wrong.

Because  _ yes  _ a double shot mocha is always fun and a bonus while guards leer and run their batons across the bars in cruelty, but for the first time in a long time, Harley is  _ lonely  _ while the absence of someone who  _ isn’t _ her Puddin’ is prevalent. Harley is  _ lonely  _ without June Moone. Without her presence, without her voice, without her touch.

And as a guard bangs on her cage bars, making Harley spill her coffee slightly, she also misses those four walls and the feeling of home.

 “You might have coffee inmate, but don’t think this means you’re in charge”

Harley frowns, wiping the spilt coffee off her pants as she sits cross legged. “I mean I  _ could  _ wipe that smug smile from your face,” And Harley smiles all teeth as the guard suddenly gets unnerved, shifting uncomfortably as she sips from her coffee. “but, I’m not gonna. One, because you’re too easy. And two, because you’d make me spill more of my coffee”

And at that, she continues sipping, flipping the pages of her book as the guard growls under his breath.

When Harley thinks about it, if June were here, there’d be no coffee, no book, no fresh uniform and clean hair. It’s what she tells herself to stop missing her, because she’s missing her  _ too much  _ and her puddin’ wouldn’t like that, would he?

_ It’s fine to miss her! She’s a good friend, why wouldn’t I? _

_ A good friend you nearly had sex with? A good friend you lov- _

Harley shakes her head, the voices rattling around her mind. She frowns as she takes another sip, her hands shaking slightly because she’s thinking too much and June’s not here, June’s not here,  _ June’s not here. _

 “Stop it”

A guard perks up, walking closer to her cage as Harley whispers to herself. “What was that inmate?” She sees in the corner of her eye how he stalks closer, leaning on the bars as Harley shakes her head fervently. Scrunching up her hair in her fist in annoyance.

_ Oh come on, you  _ **_want_ ** _ her. Like you want your puddin’ _

_ No. No, no, no. She’s different. _

_ Oh? You don’t love him anymore? _

_ No! That’s not what I- _

 “Stop, stop, stop!”

And Harley stands up, pacing back and forth as she argues. Hands in her hair as she wears grooves in the cement, and her eyes are flicking back and forth, widened as she panics. The guard to her left steps back, hand on his taser as she grabs the bars.

 “Hey, inmate. Watch yourself”

And Harley squeezes her eyes shut, the voices banging on every wall of her mind, begging to have entrance. It’s only when Harley grits her teeth, does she think of nice things, happy things, some place where the grass is green and the white picket fence glows in the daylight. And she does, she grabs the bars of her cage and rests her forehead against them, thinking of the vision Enchantress gave her. She thinks of an American dream trapped in a nightmare.

But  _ he  _ isn’t there anymore.

It's...it's  _ June _ .

Smiling and laughing, beckoning Harley with the softest of smiles. The atmosphere around Harley’s mind is blurred, hazing with the soft laughter of June and a home and a feeling of a perfect life.

_  “Harls? You okay?” _

Harley’s eyes snap open with a start, head whipping around for her voice, for her smile and worried look. Yet it fades into nothing, June’s voice echoing around the cage. “June?”

But it’s just the guard, glaring in warning as Harley sinks slowly to the floor, curled up. Her coffee goes cold, and in the distance she can hear the screaming of inmates and the dripping of water and the flashes of electricity as her mind tortures itself. And she lays there, like the cement and iron bars and cold air can give her solace. Comfort. Happiness. Something that warms her bones and tingles the apex of her spine.

Harley sleeps to the knowledge and thoughts of the home she had in her vision, and realises the only person in her entire life that’s given her that, was June.

All thoughts of  _ him  _ be damned.

  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

June likes to think Harley’s swinging somewhere to her heart's content. 

It helps her sleep at night when Enchantress whispers in her ear, it helps when all she wants is Harley.

Instead? She gets a black figure crouching in the corner, smiling up at her in her dreams, toying with the chain around her neck. She’ll wake up screaming, Harley’s name on her lips like the softest of prayers. But all she gets is the bang of a guard on the metal door, and wonders if there was a hell, if it existed-

It’s here.

She wonders if some of her family will visit, if Rick is allowed, or if her sister is sending letters that will never reach her.  

June goes through the motions of days, she counts six strokes on her wall without Harley, eats food that is most likely years old, tries to forget the other woman inside her mind. And she seems to find, not surprisingly, yearning for the touch of Harley. A whisper. A kiss. A warm embrace against the concrete chill that surrounds her. The small sliver of light still sits in her peripheral vision, and it reminds June of Harley and her voice and of nights where nothing existed but  _ them. _

It’s the seventh stroke on the concrete walls that someone  _ does  _ visit.

There’s a knock, hard and sturdy on the metal door that has June quickly opening her eyes; wishing foolishly Harley be on the other side.

But it’s..Amanda.

Amanda Waller.

A sinister, polite smile wrapped up in a constricted pant suit. June wonders how she breathes, her back so straight and presence so commanding that June thinks briefly if she has to salute when her pointed heels echo around her cell. Guards bend to her, and everything just falls...silent.

The visit of course, in itself, is unexpected.

 “Miss Moone”

At first, June is open mouthed, eyebrows scrunched slightly because what is she  _ supposed _ to think or say? To feel?  _ Oh, thank you Miss for my own personal hell and subjecting me to daily torture? Because this is all your doing? _

Instead, June just looks up, no indication she’s noticed the other woman, and goes back to a meditative position of sitting on her bed. Eyes closed and hands flat on her thighs. Amanda smiles, chuckling slightly, walking closer as her heels clack against the cement flooring.

She sits next to June, handbag on her lap, and June tries to muster up any type of fear. Some type of human emotion to tell herself to be wary, cautious, to not trust  _ anything  _ the other woman says.

And...it’s strange, June thinks with a hidden frown.

She  _ tries _ to, but she doesn’t feel a  _ thing. _

(The thought is more frightening than anything Amanda could utter between cold walls and metal bars)

 “I didn’t expect a warm welcome. How  _ is  _ solitary confinement?”

June clenches her jaw, and without having to open her eyes, she can feel Amanda’s mirthful stare. No smile. No twitch of her lips. Somehow the other woman can just gaze, and everything she’s thinking is revealed. She’s been living with Harley Quinn for months, cheap stabs at insecurity do absolutely _nothing_ to June anymore. To be honest? She misses the _‘Oh baby, how’s the little witch in ya doin? Would suck to be stuck in you for so long’_ and the following joking smile that has June rolling her eyes, falling into Harley as they laugh.

Instead, June clears her throat slightly, ridding her entire mind of those thoughts, not answering a word.

Amanda clips open her bag in response, and June hates it, but it makes her crack open an eyelid in question. The older woman sighs as she rifles through papers upon papers upon papers. Stopping suddenly and flicking out a folder, throwing it precariously to June’s lap.

 “Your ticket out of here June. Don’t waste it”

She nearly laughs,  _ June  _ nearly cackles like Enchantress at Amanda’s words. After all this? After everything? She expects her to  _ trust  _ her? June opens her mouth, frowning as she flips through the pages feeling Amanda’s stare on her face.

Sometimes Harley stared at her like that, eyes comically wide, lip drawn in.

(Like she was trying to figure out what June made her feel)

June shuts the folder with a snap, she needs to stop thinking about Harley. Or her face, or smile, her touch, her eyes, her love-

 “Miss Moone.”

It isn’t a question, more a demand. June looks up, to the way Amanda’s hands are folded on her lap, eyes like ice. June wonders if anyone has ever made them melt. She supposes not, they seem frozen.

 “I don’t offer this lightly. Stakes are high,-”

 “And why should I trust you?”

The flickered hardened gaze shot towards her has June nearly shrink in her bed, she guesses Amanda’s never been interrupted mid speech in her entire life. But June doesn’t waver, she clenches her boney fingers to her uniform, but other than that she is  _ sturdy.  _ Not wavering. The light from that crack in her room hits her wrist, it feels like Harley tracing patterns on her skin.

Enchantress tries to whisper, it’s dull, but June makes out ‘ _ Take it’  _ as Amanda leans in close.

That  _ smile  _ is back.

The same one in the courtroom. When June felt the judges hammer against wood like a seal, the words ‘ _ Guilty’  _ stamped across her heart like a false promise. She watched Amanda turn around, smile, and that was that.

June was sentenced, for a crime  _ she  _ never committed.

Yet this smile? It makes June’s throat almost close up.

And as Amanda takes her chin in her fingers, shaking condescendingly, the words that leave her mouth make June wonder if she just brushed paths with the devil. With the woman herself who would step on the decaying ribcages of a many to achieve her goal, wiping her stilettos on their flesh. June wants this to be a dream, for Enchantress to scream in her mind, for it to fall away at the edges. For Harley to hush her and bring her closer to her chest, for her to listen to her heart beat until she falls asleep.

Then maybe she’d be able to breathe.

 “You should trust me Miss Moone, because the last I saw of her, your precious  _ Harley _ isn’t looking so good,” And June feels her let go of her now slack jaw, pick up her handbag, and head to the door as she chances one glance back. Amanda nodding once, smiling almost  _ politely _ .

 “Do reconsider June,” her heels echo, voice tilting in something like a  _ promise. _

 “I’d hate to be the bearer of bad news”

And June’s world, it crumbles at the edges.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

Harley always wondered what would happen if they administered the blue liquid instead of the pink. 

The pink made her smile, forget things, it made her docile and sweet and  _ placid.  _ It made Harley think the elephant in the room really  _ was  _ an elephant. Yes, it made her nice; gentle. And the time June found her in the shower stalls, shaking and giggling half naked, was only the  _ half  _ of what it did to her. Sometimes Harley thinks back, wonders briefly what she used to do without someone... _ caring  _ for her. Without having someone pick up the broken pieces of yourself and put you back together. From scratch. Out of their own care.

June did that. No motive. Without selfish intentions. With love.

And strapped now, currently to a gurney, thrashing and screaming because  _ no no please. No more,  _ makes Harley want to break the leather binds on her wrists. To find June. Forget anything that happened before her.

And  _ run. _

The devil says through the glass opposite Harley to “ _ Administer the blue vile”  _ yet Harley can’t see or hear anymore because her screams have become void. Null. Trapped.

Her only thought being June, even as her head smacks against the bed, even as Amanda Waller flinches at the scene -- hiding behind glass, tapping her nails on the surface of a bench. As if Harley and June were pawns, just a game. Nothing more.

  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

June hears the scream ten minutes after Amanda leaves. 

And she  _ knows.  _ Oh god, does she know.

It makes her drop the file on the bed, sprint to her jail door, and bang on the metal until her hands are bruised. Because that was  _ Harley’s  _ screams, piercing as a faint echo down the cellar walls. It makes June’s heart constrict, making her bang harder on the door as if the whole room was on fire.

 “Amanda! Hey!”

But a guard just coughs, shutting the peep hole with a  _ clack. _

June lets her hand slip, then her body, down the door to the ground. And she fists her hands in her hair because Harley is in trouble and alone and being  _ tortured  _ and it’s as if June’s soul is shattering all over again. And all for the sake of what? Why on God’s earth would Amanda be using Harley to get to her, to make her agree to  _ whatever  _ conditions she-

June brings her head up with a start. Runs to the bed. Flicks through the file, letting multiple photos and articles of  _ Gotham's’ Daily News  _ fall to the cold hard ground. The name “The Joker” printed in black ink, so early is the article that the ink smudges on June’s fingertips.

And she wonders; why her? Why would Amanda Waller need  _ June Moone,  _ senior archaeologist with a criminal record for that matter, to help with the Joker? To help with-

A note falls to the ground in front of June, as she keeps flicking, eyes wide and heart racing. And it sits there, on June’s bed, like a clock. Ticking down time, stealing moments of Harley and June’s lives right in front of their noses.

June reads the script, Amanda Waller's name in print, and everything's confusing but making  _ perfect  _ sense.

 

_ You’ve spent your entire life discovering things. Uncovering. Finding.  _

 

_ I’m a desperate woman June Moone. I need all the help I can get. Find the Joker. His where abouts, location, have what you will.  _

 

_ The Batman seems to have faith in you, so naturally, who am I to oppose the oh so great Dark Knight?  _

 

_ If you fail, consequences are high. We will provide you with safe living quarters to conduct your research, yet, you’re still under arrest.  _

 

_ Harley seemed to get the message. I’m sure you heard.  _

 

_ All the best, _

 

_ -Amanda Waller  _

June lets a single tear fall to her chin, she rips the letter apart, clenches her jaw. And she bangs on the metal door until her knuckles bleed.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

It’s five minutes later does a guard slam the door open, cuff a struggling June, and lead her down corridors and corridors that seem to never end, a labyrinth of concrete and screams. They turn left, then right, then left again and again and it isn’t until white tile flooring a bright lights meet June’s eyes does she know  _ where _ she’s being taken. 

The infirmary.

_ Harley. _

It isn’t so much relief that hits her, or worry or guilt -- it’s  _ fear. _

Fear in what they’ve done to her, fear in if June walks in there, she won't be recognised at all.

 “Miss Moone, see you’ve finally arrived”

Amanda stands in front of an iron door, hands clasped behind her back, ever the image of perfect command and power. June, for a moment, envies her. Envies her inability to feel  _ anything.  _ Because when June stays silent, not uttering a word, Amanda just rolls her eyes; gesturing to the door for the guard to open it. And June can’t muster the strength to even  _ glance  _ at Amanda, afraid if she even got a peak, she’d rain down hell on the woman who did  _ this. _

What greets June makes her knees weak, and it’s sad; maybe even tragic, how June has fallen for the woman across from her.

Through bulletproof glass sits Harley, leather bounds strapped to her wrists as she sits with her knees drawn in; smiling and jeering at a guard that stands uncomfortably to the side.

And she’s  _ there,  _ paler, smaller, but ever her Harley.

June darts to the glass, cuffed hands splayed on the one way screen as she calls. Voice breaking in moments because Harley is  _ alive  _ and well and maybe nothing has been lost, but rather saved.

 “Harls! Harley can you-”

Amanda raises her chin over June’s loud voice, and lays a heavy hand on her shoulder. “She can’t hear you. Sound proof glass, Miss Moone”

And June lets her hands fall, and without looking from the glass says; “Let me see her.  _ Now _ ”

It’s the first, and maybe even the last time, that Amanda Waller takes orders from someone else other than herself. The door buzzes open, and June darts in, hair following in a rush.

The room is cold, icy even, but Harley sits there smiling as if it’s the warmest she’s ever been. A white hospital gown adorns her thin frame, her skin so translucent her veins jut out from every available space of her skin. But June just closes her eyes, smiles, and waits for Harley to notice her presence. It seems to slow time, how Harley leans her head on her arm that rests on her drawn in knees, and realisation crosses her face in tiny moments. Eyes widening, mouth parting, head rising, then...a  _ smile. _

The widest grin to spread across Harley Quinn’s face.

 “Baby!”

June’s heart settles to a normal beat; and when she runs to Harley, crushing their bodies together with her arms around the other woman, she’s surprised they don’t meld. Become _ one. _

Two planets colliding; June’s tears on Harley’s clothes like star dust.


	6. update

this is just a little note saying i haven't abandoned this fic. i just started university and am currently working on top of that. life is really, REALLY busy xx i love this fic and the pairing, its just much harder to keep up with a chaptered fic rather than just writing short little one shots in other fandoms. but the next two chaps are being written right now! chap 6 being close to finished. 

thank u all for being so patient! i have a lot of plans for this story x


	7. if we were meant to be, we would have been by now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh wow. ya its me. reappearing nearly an entire year later. 
> 
> first, i totally forgot about this fic, as in, my computer literally deleted all my files on google docs. cut to me having a depressive episode of losing half my fics back in may and wondering what the fuck to do and trying fervently to remember how i wanted this fic to pan out. then life happened, (like alot. wow so much has changed) and i resorted to writing one shots and stuff for other fandoms cause its easier and its like this one got lost in my mind. but uh, im back! 
> 
> i have no idea if this will continue, im really hoping my inspo comes back. and if yall are still reading this fic thank u! like its not even a popular ship but its been received so well and it still makes my heart warm. anyways this is what i was able to recover from me FINALLY getting those fics back. ill try to get back into things, maybe rewatch the movie (even tho its trash dfhsdj) to get inspiration. anyways blah blah blah ive talked too much enjoy! x
> 
> (chaps not that long but ill get there! x)

-

 

 

Harley only comes to reality when June pulls back, arms slacking as the older woman looks to her relieved face. There is a lot, Harley admits, that goes through her mind in the next two seconds. _June, blue vial, June, Amanda, June, June, June._

It’s the “Amanda” part of that sentence that has her gaze go red with rage. _She_ did this to them, _she_ made the bruises on June’s knuckles, _she’s_ the one who separated the two. It lights Harley’s chest up with a burning she hasn’t felt in _years._

She lunges forward, the only barrier between Amanda and her being the straps around her wrists, halting her abruptly. Guards move forward, hands on guns -- only being stopped by June’s stern: “It’s okay! I’ve got this” making both of the men look to Amanda in confirmation.

And in that moment, Harley notices the near invisible twitch of Amanda’s eyebrows from behind the glass, and she almost _growls_ in rage. It’s June, her light, that holds to her forearms so carefully it was almost feather like.

 “Harls. _No,_ listen to me,”

And Harley just grits her teeth, body still jerking at times with rage. Even when June rests her hands on her wrists, easing the pressure and strain of the straps. “We have to co-operate for a short while, okay? Just…” June then whispers, her breath hot on Harley’s cheek as she darts her eyes to the woman across from her, muscles easing and body relaxing as June’s voice lulls over her in waves.

 “Just, trust me. _Please_ ”

It’s a plea, words coated in reassurance. _We’ll be okay. I promise. I’ll make sure of it._

Harley, with her line of operation, _trust_ hasn’t come easy. But as June’s eyes almost start to water, it falls to Harley’s shoulders like bricks, how _serious_ June is.

Yet she still frowns, pouting in that Harley way that still makes June let a small smile out.

 “Baby, if you think I'm co operating with _her_ you gotta another thing coming…”

All June does is raise a perfect eyebrow, making Harley deflate and roll her eyes, relenting.

 “ _Fine._ But I’m with you. No one else”

June lets a relieved sigh out, chuckling as the blonde below her then shakes her wrists and ankles with the straps that confide her. “First on the whole co operation thing-” June raises an eyebrow, narrowing her eyes when it just makes Harley sigh.

 “ _Chill_ honey. All I want is new clothes, a warmer room and no creepy middle aged guards starin’ at me”

June sees in the corner of her vision how Amanda’s jaw physically tightens, but both women know, half of those requests will be fulfilled. She looks back to Harley, her gaze softens, and she feels Amanda’s eyes on her back like daggers. Making the hairs on her neck stand up straight.

But Harley ‘boops’ her on the nose, saying “Yellow? Anyone home?” with this concerned look June thinks hasn’t graced her face since in years.

She finds herself saying “Yeah, no. I’m here” with a shake of her head and a smile so bright it makes Harley’s chest ache. Even when Amanda’s gaze drills daggers into her spine; even when the threat of the woman behind the glass weighs down on June’s shoulders.

(Pressing and pressing and _pressing_ until June can’t remember how to breathe)

 

 

 

-

 

 “I have to wear _this?”_

 “Okay, I _admit_ , it’s not flattering when you say it like that”

Harley looks down to her ankle, to the large metal black box strapped to her calf. It beeps on occasion; a red flashing light staring back up at her. Harley simply shakes her ankle defeatedly, groaning as the car they’re seated in pulls up to a set of modern apartments. The words “Sunshine Estate” glare back at her in gold lettering.

She mumbles back a defeated “At least we match” that has June snorting and repositioning her cuffed hands so they don’t dig into her skin.

The building is...nice. White walls and glass windows glitter back at Harley, the gravel driveway crackles under the tires and the younger woman presses her face to the glass, staring up with a frown to the building, mouth open in wonder and disappointment.

 “This is it baby,” all she hears is June’s confused but humourful “What?” as she rolls down the bullet proof window, laughing into the open air that meets her skin.

 “This is by _far_ my lowest point. _Sunshine Estates?_ What are we, in a Doctor Suess book?”

June just rolls her eyes with a smile, waiting for the guards that were driving to unbuckle their seatbelts; to unlock the heavy handcuffs around their wrists that make June’s hands ache. She doesn’t miss the assault rifles at their hips, and isn’t that a little unnecessary? Over the top?

(Harley grins at the youngest of the guards, making him falter uneasily in unlocking her cuffs. And June remembers _oh, right. Known psychopath sitting to my right. Who I...care for._

Sometimes June gets whiplash from her life.)

 

 

 

-

 

When the guards escort them inside, both women realise the outside was exactly as the word implies: a facade.

Sunshine Estates is anything but sunny.

The room they’ve been allocated is anything but flashy; it’s bare and beige and _dull_. One king sized bed and en suite - a small kitchenette and a walk in wardrobe is what fills the small space. There’s a desk, old computer, and one telephone that June already knows is wired. She doesn’t even want to get started on the rooms door - so many locks and bolts it puts their jail cell to shame.

The windows seem thick; dark and hard and sturdy. She sees stationed guards at the front on the garden, pacing. And _o_ _h,_ June thinks, _bulletproof glass. Duh._

And when she walks in, gun pressed to her back, June’s ankle beeps and the cuffs around her wrist feel really, _really_ uncomfortable.

 “Well this is…” Harley trails off, whistling as she pokes the bed with her foot; nose scrunched up. “I’ve had worse if I’m being honest”

June sighs, letting the guards unlock her cuffs. How they pay no attention to Harley’s teasing smile; shutting the door with a loud bang; the locks clicking closed like a safe.

And June stands in the middle of the room; breath shaky and hands not being able to stop jittering. She’s a _mess;_ because this is it. This is where she’ll be with her….her _Harley._ For god knows how long. Searching for said Harley’s missing, murderous, manipulative partner. At the whim of Amanda’s every word, June can practically still feel the gun presses against the side of her head, as if the woman was there. Standing there as a warning.

But then, the feelings replaced by a body. Pressing against her back. Her shaking hands being covered by pale skinny ones, fingers rubbing between her knuckles. It’s almost awkward, as if Harley’s never had to comfort someone like this. Or as if she’s _forgot._ But it’s June. Her June.

It comes as natural as breathing to her now.

 “You gonna say anythin’?”

June breathes in, lets herself smile at the feeling of Harley’s soft voice at her ear, and tries to forget. Tries to think of _anything_ else as she mumbles out.

 “The drapes are hideous”

It makes Harley laugh into her neck, June feels the blondes ribs against her spine, and a sliver of light is cast. Enough to ease the darkness, enough for Enchantress to ease. For June to refocus, Harley against her skin like a safety net.

-


End file.
